April30, 2012

Berman: “The Taiwanese-American community in California is proud of their heritage and birthplace. It is unfair to force members of this community to list ‘Taiwan, Province of China’ as their country of birth when they register to vote online, when their true birthplace is Taiwan. Our federal government uses the term Taiwan and the state of California should do the same.”

Valley Village, CA - U.S. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village) wrote California Secretary of State Debra Bowen today, asking that California residents born in Taiwan registering to vote online be allowed to list their country of birth as Taiwan, rather than Taiwan, Province of China as the system currently allows.

“The Taiwanese-American community in California is proud of their heritage and birthplace,” said U.S. Rep. Howard Berman. “It is unfair to force members of this community to list ‘Taiwan, Province of China’ as their country of birth when they register to vote online, when their birthplace is Taiwan. Our federal government uses the term Taiwan and the state of California should do the same.”

A longtime champion on this issue, Rep. Berman passed legislation allowing Taiwanese-Americans to have “Taiwan” recorded as their birthplace on their American passports. Berman authored H.R. 5034 along with then Rep. Olympia Snow (R-ME) in September 1994 providing the U.S. Secretary of State the authority to write Taiwan as the place of birth in a passport when requested by the applicant who was born there. The bill passed and was signed into law. Until then, “China” had been listed as the birthplace for Taiwanese Americans.

In the letter to Secretary of State Bowen, Berman writes: “It has been long-standing U.S. policy that the U.S. government refers to Taiwan as ‘Taiwan.’ Federal and quasi-federal agencies such as Amtrak, the U.S. Postal Service, and the U.S. State Department, all refer to Taiwan simply as “Taiwan.” I would respectfully request that your office, as a government agency, adopt the same terminology in reference to Taiwan.”